Launcher Problem

[michaelcpalmer]

I am running Dolphin 5 on Ubuntu 19.10. Unfortunately the PPA hasn't been updated for 19.10 and the version included in the Ubuntu Universe repository doesn't display its subversion. My hardware includes an 8th gen i5, nvidia mx150, and 8gb RAM.

Dolphin's emulation is superb, but its interface is less so. I wish to play from my couch/bed using only a controller but that isn't possible. The dolphin gui doesn't support gamepads and the retroarch core is too slow. I use Kodi for video playback and its Lutris add-on to launch Linux and Windows games(using WINE). I setup Advanced Emulator Launcher but that doesn't work either.

Using  'dolphin-emu -e "ROM_NAME.EXT" -b' as the command causes one of two different problems. In KDE, the emulator launches but the Kodi window stays on top. I need to alt-tab to get to the dolphin (fullscreen) window, and after using my two button hotkey to close the emulator, I need to alt-tab back into kodi to bring it over the taskbar.  In Gnome, the emulation (fullscreen) window does show up on top, but the user interface window pops up on top of that. Once again I need to alt-tab before I can play the game.

I cannot fathom why Dolphin neither offers a controller friendly interface nor runs properly from a command line. Other than Dolphin, I can run any Linux game, Windows game, or linux emulator from Kodi without any problems. They open in fullscreen, and after I exit, Kodi takes over my screen.

I suspect this problem occurs because Dolphin insists on opening two separate Windows. In the past it was able to render to the interface Window and I chose to use that option, but it seems to have been removed. As a test I wrote a couple short python scripts that opened two windows using combinations of pygame(SDL1.2 and SDL2.0), as well as ogl, tkinter, and PyQT. I tried them running both KDE and Gnome without being able to exactly replicate the issue I have with Dolphin(although I did create a few other problems with my rushed code).

This problem might be solved in a newer build, but I cannot install a newer build on my system until the PPA is updated to support Ubuntu 19.10.

[michaelcpalmer]

The problem was related to the version of Dolphin included in the Ubuntu repository. This has been a common issue with the distribution and I will be happy when I finish my current dev project and install Arch instead.

Now that I'm running a recent version I can finally play F-Zero GX without special options. The graphics seem better in the game, but it does slow down by about 30% in Sand Ocean tracks. Not great, but unlike previous versions, it remains playable.

For anyone running Ubuntu 19.10 and having trouble installing a new version of Dolphin you can try the following instructions.


1: Install the flatpak. You'll probably be asked to download a number of dependencies as well. After that you can run it with the second command bellow

Code:

flatpak install flathub org.DolphinEmu.dolphin-emu
flatpak run org.DolphinEmu.dolphin-emu

2: You can create a script that allows you to easily launch roms from within Kodi using the Advanced Emulator Launcher add-on, or any other launcher you prefer. I saved the following code in '/bin/dolphin-emu'. This made my script override the installed version of Dolphin so that the flatpak runs instead.

Code:

#! /bin/bash

echo Starting Dolphin Launcher
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
  then
    echo "No arguments supplied"
    flatpak run org.DolphinEmu.dolphin-emu
  else
    echo "Opening $*"
    flatpak run org.DolphinEmu.dolphin-emu -e "$*" -b
fi

3: Add a launcher in Advanced Emulator Launcher or your favorite alternative. You don't need to pass any arguments except for the path to the rom, and you don't have to enclose the path in quotes either.

[KHg8m3r]

You'd probably have better mileage building Dolphin from source than relying on 3rd party sources:
https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Building_Dolphin_on_Linux